Romanian Black Sea gets deepwater gas find

A deepwater wildcat in the western Black Sea off Romania has discovered an accumulation initially pegged at 1.5 to 3 trillion cu ft of gas whose commerciality isn’t assured, press reports said Wednesday.

The Domino-1 well is on the Neptun block held by ExxonMobil Exploration & Production Romania Ltd. and OMV Petrom SA, the 51% subsidiary of Austria's OMV AG.

The well, in 930 m of water 170 km east-northeast of Constanta, cut 70.7 m of net gas pay. It is Romania’s first deepwater well. The reports did not give the total depth or depth of the pay interval.

The two companies plan to shoot 3D seismic this year, OMV said. Production, if warranted, would likely not begin until the end of the decade at a cost of several billion dollars, it added.